The invention concerns a sausage casing holding device for a machine for the filling and twisting off of sausages, with a filling tube rotatable along its longitudinal axis, onto which a slug (`slug`=unfilled casing lengths for multiple sausages) can be pulled, and which, on its free end, is equipped with an output opening for the output of sausage fill, and with a casing brake which is equipped with a braking ring which surrounds the free end of the filling tube and which essentially rests against this under contact pressure.
Sausage casing holding devices of this type are known. The sausage casing holding device is part of a sausage filling and twist-off machine which is charged with sausage fill and which is portioned for filling into the sausage casings. During filling of the thus processed sausage fill into the casing, the slug-like casing which has been pulled onto the filling tube is pulled from the free end of the filling tube which is effected by the sausage fill extruded from the output opening on the free end of the filling tube. During the filling process, the casing brake takes care that the casing is pulled off only with a defined braked velocity under a defined pressure and is therewith stretched so that the sausage is filled with the desired plumpness.
After the sausage casing is filled with a specific portion of sausage fill during the previously described filling process, the filling tube is rotated on its own axis with the help of a twist-off drive in order to achieve a tying off of the filled casing for the formation of the sausage. The filled casing does not follow this rotational motion due to its inertia so that the tying off of the filled casing is on the end of the filling tube, therewith producing single, proportioned sausages are produced.
The braking ring of the casing brake in the known device is driven by means of a separately provided drive in the rotational direction of the filling tube in the twist-off process, whereby a secure carrying of the casing during the twist-off process is possible.
Certainly, the known casing holding device is reliable during the filling process as well as during the twist-off process, however it requires higher manufacturing and maintenance costs which in part are not economical for smaller and middle sized businesses.
It is therefore the task of the invention to simplify a sausage casing holding device of the type mentioned at the outset, that would be economically interesting for smaller and mid-sized firms.